


since we can't trust tomorrow

by elegantidler



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Gen, Historical, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, M/M, Pre-Canon, Self-Loathing, Trans Character, Trans Erik, Trans Male Character, rosy hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26060161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantidler/pseuds/elegantidler
Summary: The good and bad of this earth will one day wind to an end, in healing or in pain.
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera & The Persian, Erik | Phantom of the Opera/The Persian
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	since we can't trust tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, this is very sad and melancholy but if the rubaiyat teaches us anything is that despite how cruel life can be, we have to seize the little moments of happiness we can and hold tight, and I hope I have given these characters some of those moments.

_Since we can’t trust tomorrow,_

_Find a way to fill this lovelorn heart with joy:_

_Drink up in the light of the moon—a moon that someday_

_Will look for us…and not find us._

* * *

**Nizhnii Novgorod, 1853: Full moon**

“Are you Erik?” asks an unfamiliar voice in Russian.

A man is peering at him from the entrance of the stall, waiting for an answer.

Erik is enchanted by this stranger from the moment he says his name.

The stranger looks significantly less than enchanted however. But he doesn’t look angry at least. Tired perhaps, by not angry. He probably isn’t about to attack Erik.

And he doesn’t look Russian either. He’s dressed in the style of the Iranian silk merchants, tall black wool hat, blue tunic and waistcoat, wrapped in a heavy wool cape.

Erik nods, still a bit wary. He wonders what a silk trader could want with him. He gestures for the stranger to follow him outside so that they can speak privately behind his small performance stall.

Shielded from the lights of the fair the full moon bathes them both in silvery light.

From one of his trunks Erik gathers a bottle of wine and two glasses and holds one out to his visitor.

“Sharab?”

His visitor accepts that glass and tilts his head curiously.

“Farsi?”

Erik shrugs and makes a noncommittal gesture with one hand. His Russian is better, but enough traders speak Farsi that he can manage simple conversations.

He drains his own glass before perching on the trunk and indicating to the stranger that he should say what he has come to say.

He has a proposition for Erik, a very interesting proposition, which he presents in a combination of Farsi and awkward halting Russian. He is, in fact, not a silk merchant; he has come from Tehran at the request of the shah.

It seems that someone more powerful than Russian traders wants to see him perform.

Erik considers this proposition.

He is beginning to grow tired of Russia. Or rather, Russia is beginning to grow tired of him. The people at the fair no longer look at his tricks with delight and wonder; instead they have begun to whisper and keep their families away from him.

It isn’t surprising, it has happened countless times before, but it is wearisome and Erik has begun to wonder how much longer he can stay here without risking violence.

But now someone is seeking him out, someone wants to see him perform badly enough to send this beautiful stranger to fetch him. Surely that is worth something. Surely he wouldn’t be run off immediately.

And if Erik is being completely honest with himself, he would follow this stranger, who has introduced himself as Raheem Abbas, just about anywhere, if only to keep hearing him speak.

His voice is beautiful, even rough with exhaustion.

Erik takes a deep breath and agrees.

He is going to Iran. **  
**

* * *

**Mazandaran, 1854: Waning Gibbous**

He wanted Iran to be different, but it is not.

He had been so caught up in the idea of someone seeking him out, that he had hoped, foolishly, stupidly, that things would be different, hoped that he could be accepted, wanted, hoped that his bloody trail of suffering would not follow him here.

Oh, he had tried. He has tried so hard to be something else. He does not want to just be a monster anymore.

He had created beautiful things but Sima Khanum had been bored by beauty, bored with his tricks and illusions. She had pushed him, pushed him further and further, pushed him until he had turned death itself into a thing of terrible, twisted beauty for her entertainment.

Again and again she had summoned him to the mirrored room he had created and demanded death from him. His or the prisoner's, it did not matter to her.

And Erik had done it. Had killed so many and spilled so much blood that he thinks it will stain his hands forever, all in the hope of the tiniest scrap of praise and acceptance.

And now he is sitting in the garden alone, still always alone, trying desperately to forget about what he had done so willingly for her.

The blood drying on his hands looks black in the moonlight.

“My God, Erik! Are you okay?”

Erik is so startled by Raheem’s sudden voice he doesn’t register that this is the first time anyone has ever asked him that.

“It’s not my blood,” he responds flatly.

“Okay…but are _you_ okay?”

Erik jerks his head around to stare at Raheem.

“I am fine...will be fine.”

With a heavy sigh, Raheem sits down next to him, pressed close; Erik can feel the warmth of his body through their clothes. He relaxes slightly. 

“The suspected Babi, right?”

Erik nods and Raheem continues, “It’s been almost two years. I thought this was over, but I just brought another one in today. I don’t know…”

Raheem is a good man, yet he is sitting here, speaking of death and horror like he knows it, like he too knows what blood looks like in the moonlight.

Perhaps Raheem has done terrible things too. Perhaps things are more complicated than Erik’s experience has made him believe. Perhaps people are neither demons nor gods, perhaps they are simply people.

The wind rustles through the leaves and Erik lets Raheem’s quiet presence leech away some of the horror and he starts to relax.

They sit in comfortable silence for several long moments until Raheem stands, pulling Erik up after him, not caring about getting blood on his hands.

“Come on, I’ll help you clean this off. And then I think we could both do with a drink.”

May there is something different in Iran.

As they traveled to Iran Raheem had laughed so warmly as Erik stumbled his way through learning Farsi, that Erik’s heart stuttered with happiness instead of embarrassment, and he laughed too. He has never laughed with anyone before. And for months now Raheem has stayed, stayed near Erik.

He sees a man when everyone else has only ever seen a monster.

No one has ever treated Erik with the kindness that Raheem keeps giving him.

He doesn’t deserve it, as blood-soaked as he is, but he squeezes Raheem’s hand and doesn’t let go.

* * *

**Mazandaran, 1856: Third Quarter**

“It’s incredible, Erik, really,” Raheem says, grinning at him.

Erik has just finished showing him around his latest project, the mirrored chamber and iron trees now things of the past. The skeletal frame of the shah’s new palace reaches gracefully through the air.

Erik had taken great delight in pointing out all the tricks he has created for it. No one else knows all of them. Erik isn’t even planning on telling Naser al-Din about all of them but Raheem had been so impressed by each new display that Erik had been unable and unwilling to hold anything back from him.

Every time Erik shown him a new trick Raheem had smiled at him.

If Erik lives to be 100, he will never see anything as beautiful as Raheem’s smile. He never wants him to stop smiling, and he wants, selfishly, to be the reason for something so beautiful.

And before Erik can stop himself, before he can even consider how stupid, how foolish, how dangerous it is, he has leaned forward and kissed Raheem.

It is over in a second as reality catches up to him.

He reels back, and clamps his bony hands over his mouth. Raheem staring at him in shock, mouth open, eyes wide.

“Forgive me,” Erik pleads, “please forget that happened, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…I just...please, please…”

Erik trails off, his entire body trembling. How could he have been so stupid? He has ruined everything. He is going to have to leave Iran. He is never going to see Raheem’s smile again.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could something so wretched dare to love someone like him? How could you think that a hideous corpse like you could ever kiss someone so beautiful and not be struck down?_

Not looking where he is going, he backs up until he feels a wall behind him and sinks down against it. He curls in on himself and brings his arms up to hide his face.

Or at least, he tries to.

A soft and gentle hand catches his wrist and holds it still.

Erik doesn’t look up; he doesn’t want to see horror and hatred on Raheem’s face.

“Erik…”

Raheem’s voice isn’t angry or disgusted, it is gentle, and it is unlike anything Erik has ever heard before.

No one has ever said Erik’s name, either of his names, like that; gently, like it is something beautiful, like it is sacred, like the thing it refers to is just a man.

His parents had spat his old name with disgust and hatred and horror, his manager had never referred to him as anything but ‘mort vivant’. The few who bothered to learn his real name, the name he picked himself, were always wary; never wanting to get too close to the monster it is attached to.

Raheem is crouched down in front of him, rubbing his thumb gently across Erik’s thin wrist, saying his name like it is something beautiful and sacred and _beloved_ and Erik finally looks up at him, the light of the half-moon illuminating them both and Raheem is looking at him smiling. Smiling at a monster. Smiling at _Erik_.

“You didn’t let me kiss you back.”

And before Erik can even process what is happening, Raheem is kissing him.

Erik thinks faintly, that he would suffer a thousand mirrored chambers to have lived this moment.

* * *

**Mazandaran, 1857: Waning Crescent**

The palace is finally finished.

It is a massive architectural achievement and it is extraordinarily beautiful.

Naser al-Din has been touring his court around it proudly all week.

But what should have been a celebration has quickly morphed into terror.

For the past several weeks the court has been buzzing with rumors that the shah was going to have all of Erik’s workers put to death to keep the palace’s secrets.

And Aqa Khan Nuri seems to have gotten his way in the end. His own position as prime minister has become so precarious lately that he has seized the opportunity to redirect Naser al-Din’s lingering paranoia and anger towards someone else to save his own neck. 

It is not just the workers who are set to die, but Erik as well. And Raheem is supposed to be the one to do it.

It isn’t fair.

These people want to destroy Erik in every possible way. They had taken a skittish and damaged young man--a man who lit up at the possibility of making Raheem smile, who loved so big that he had risked everything to kiss Raheem that first night, and again and again since then, who wanted only to make beautiful things, who had turned up one night with an armful of orange blossom branches after Raheem said how much he missed them while he was away from Mazandaran, their sweet citrus scent hanging heavy in the air between them--and they had turned him in a blood-soaked killer.

Sima Khanum for her own twisted entertainment in Mazandaran, the shah for his own political ambitions in Herat.

And now, after they have wrung every last bit of usefulness out of him for themselves, they are going to kill him. 

Raheem will not, cannot, let that happen.

His world is crashing down around him and it is all he can do from keep from breaking down. But he needs to keep his head; Erik needs him to keep his head. He needs to get Erik out of Iran.

He finds Erik sitting in his garden, eyes closed, a small content smile on his face.

“Erik! You need to leave now!” He hands him the autograph note from the shah.

Erik looks down at it curiously, his features falling as he understands what it means. He doesn’t look surprised, just resigned, and that almost pushes Raheem over the edge. He reaches out and clasps Erik’s shaking hand.

“I have a way out, but you need to move fast.”

Erik nods and disappears for a moment, and returns, now masked, wearing a heavy _aba,_ and carrying a cloth bag.

Raheem leads them quickly to the outskirts of the city where he has a horse waiting.

Erik is silent for a moment.

“Only one horse.”

Raheem looks around them quickly and takes Erik’s face in his hands, kissing him fiercely, feeling Erik relax into it. He leans his forehead against Erik’s masked one and waits for him to open his eyes.

“I need you to leave. I need you to go without me. I can only keep you safe if they think you’re dead and I can only make them think that you’re dead from here.”

He feels tears stinging the corners of his eyes and sees tears in Erik’s golden eyes too and feels him start to shake his head.

“I don’t deserve this. They are right to want me dead. You should go. Leave me and save yourself.”

Raheem’s heart seizes.

“Listen to me, Erik. Get away from this place, get away from this people. I know you, I know how good you can be, how good you’ve been to me. Go somewhere else, be the man I know you are. No more crimes, no more bloodshed. Go make something beautiful. I’ll be fine. I need to keep you safe. Please. Please go. I promise, _I promise,_ that I will find you again somehow but you need to go _now._ ”

Erik kisses him one last time, and Raheem can taste the salt of his freshly fallen tears on his lips.

Letting go of Erik is the hardest thing Raheem has ever had to do and it feels like he has torn out a piece of his own heart in the process.

He watches Erik mount the horse and ride away without looking back.

And standing on the outskirts of the city, Raheem’s knees buckle under him and he lets his tears fall and he curses the crescent moon above him for grinning at his despair.

* * *

**Constantinople, 1860: New Moon**

In the past seven years, Erik has almost forgotten what it meant to be so utterly alone.

He steals through the darkened city, no moon to give him away, forced once more to flee.

He is alone and he is angry.

He is angry at Abdulmejid for turning on him. He has angry at himself for being so stupid and letting himself be used like this again.

And under it all he is angry at Raheem. So, so angry at him. 

Raheem had given him a horse and told him to flee, told him to go make something beautiful without shedding blood. He does not know how hard it is to be near beauty when the whole world looks at you and sees a monster.

Raheem had kissed him again and again.

Raheem had not come with him.

Raheem had seen him as a man when everyone else had seen a monster.

Raheem had told Erik to go so he would be safe. Erik does not feel safe here without him.

Raheem has said _I love you_ over and over and still he had left.

His loneliness is all the more bitter now that he has tasted the sweetness of love.

_Love._

Erik hates himself for being so naïve as to believe that something like him could ever be loved. Love cannot touch dead things.

It was all a lie, a cruel trick played on him by a cruel man, and Erik had been stupid enough to love him back.

His anger twists and tangles with heart-wrenching agony and threatens to devour him. 

He wants to let it.

How foolish was he to believe that anyone could love him, that anyone would give up a life to be with him.

He hates his heart for hoping. He wants to tear it from his chest and crush it beneath his heel. That would teach it to stop getting it’s hopes up.

If he ever sees Raheem again, he will kill him. How dare he think he can taunt a monster and live?

His parents were right, his manager was right, everyone was right. He is nothing but a wretched creature. A monster with a face like death. And that is all he will ever be.

He will always be alone.

God, he is so tired of living like this, he is tired of running.

This life is not a life at all.

* * *

**Paris, 1862: Waxing Crescent**

Work has run long today, the crescent moon already rising low in the pink sky before most of them workmen leave the site.

Erik glares at worker walking in the opposite direction, away from the frame of the new opera house, for glancing at his mask for a few seconds too long.

Today has been particularly trying. A group of men working under his supervision had not bothered to lower their voices when mocking how young he seems.

And Erik is young! He is still not even thirty. But they have reminded him that no matter how he dresses, how he carries himself, or how much authority he manages to trick his way into, people will always look at him and hear his voice and think he is only a boy. Or worse.

He smooths down the front of his waistcoat nervously as he passes another group of workers laughing amongst themselves.

Anger wraps itself wrapped vice-like around his heart and makes it hard to breathe for a moment.

People have always screamed at a monster, and now they have learned to snicker at a _thing_ pretending at being a gentleman.

 _What is the point of all this,_ he thinks angrily to himself.

All those times he has fled from death, maybe he should have let it catch him.

He has stopped killing, he has tried to be normal, he has tried to be respectable, but nothing is different. He is still hideous, he is still met with hostile look everywhere, he is still alone.

Why is he torturing himself by trying? He is killing himself to fit into a life that will never accept him.

There is no better life waiting for him, no possibility of happiness. He has escaped death for nothing. He cannot have a normal life. He deserves nothing but a hole in the ground.

He wants nothing more than to disappear down below and work on his own house, away from all these prying eyes and hostile whispers.

And he never wants to face them again.

He can bear the loneliness if it means he will no longer have to bear their mocking.

He should have realized by now that the hostility of the human race is a far worse pursuer than death.

Not even thirty years old and already tired of life.

Too tired, too angry, and still so very alone.

* * *

**Paris, 1876: First Quarter**

Eric has never expected to see anyone on the shore by his underground house, no one even knows it is down here, and he especially does not expect to see Raheem standing there, apparently waiting for him.

His heart skips several beats, a whirlwind of different emotions clamor for release within him.

But he has spent so long underground there is no room for any light anymore and fury threatens to consume him.

A long time ago he had promised himself that if he ever saw Raheem again, he would kill him.

He rushes at him, anger blocking out everything else around him and only just manages to stop himself, toe to toe with a man he thought he would never see again.

“Why are you here?” Erik spits the words at Raheem.

All these years have not dulled the pain of betrayal.

Erik knows he is a terrible site to behold, but Raheem stands his ground.

“I thought I would come see how you’ve been,” he says lightly.

Erik crosses his arms and glares, fuming. How can Raheem stand there and converse as if Erik has not spent the past nineteen years burning in hell alone? How can he stand there as if nothing has happened?

“Why are you here, _in Paris?_ ” Erik had given up waiting on Raheem’s promise years ago.

“Oh, I’ve been here for a while now. I figured you would end up back in France eventually and Paris seemed like the obvious choice. I was only a matter of time before I found you. People keep talking about how this place is haunted but obviously there’s no ghost. But there is only one man I know who could appear and disappear well enough to pass for one.”

He pauses, one hand tugging nervously at the hem of his sleeve.

“I did promise.”

The corner of Raheem’s mouth twitches up in the beginning of a hopeful smile.

And Erik wants to hate him so badly. He let Erik walk away. He had kissed him and left him.

But he is standing here. He found him, just like he had promised he would.

He wants to be angry, he wants to be terrible. He wants to tears Raheem to pieces and make him feel a small fraction of the pain he has endured since Raheem let him walk away.

But that hint of a smile is still the most beautiful thing in the world to Erik, more beautiful even than all his recent work here. And it still makes his heart soar.

He wants to hate him, he has hated him for the past nineteen years, but standing here, looking at him in person, he realizes he doesn’t hate him at all. 

“So…,” Raheem prompts again, sensing Erik's abating anger “how have you been?”

He feels his years of rage begin to crumble. And his voice is quiet and shaky and unfamiliar when he finally answers him.

“I have been…building beautiful things.” He gestures to the building several stories above him.

Raheem glances up, his eyes bright.

“Can you show me?”

And for a fraction of a minute, they are back in Mazandaran again.

He leads Raheem around the darkened opera house, showing him some of the secrets he has built into the walls and just like before Raheem is delighted by every single one. All these years and Erik has not lost the ability to give him magic and Raheem’s smile has lost none of its beauty.

When they have walked from top to bottom he leads Raheem outside towards the front of the building and gestures grandly to the façade.

The half-moon isn’t quite bright enough to show the details but it is enough to illuminate the smile on Raheem’s face as he turns to look at Erik.

“It’s incredible, Erik,” Raheem says, turning to look at Erik. 

But his voice is tinged with sadness this time.

The moment stretches out between them.

Almost twenty years have passed.

Too much time has passed.

And nothing has changed, and everything is different.

And Paris is not Mazandaran.

Raheem looks away first and turns to look at the opera house once more.

Erik stands beside him silently, turning to follow Raheem’s gaze.

And then, without looking away from the opera house, Raheem extends his hand towards Erik and gently threads their fingers together and Erik doesn’t pull away.

It can't erase the past twenty years, can't undo all that pain.

But for right now, it is enough.

* * *

**Paris, 1881: Waxing Gibbous**

Raheem regrets letting Erik leave the minute the carriage is out of sight.

The memory of that night in Mazandaran hits him squarely in the chest.

History repeats, and everything catches up to you eventually.

The moonlight is the complete opposite of all those years ago but that old wound in his heart aches again with the same familiar pain.

Erik is dying and Raheem is simply watching him disappear.

He stands frozen, thinking, and then, very suddenly, something monumental shifts around him.

He goes back inside and exchanges a few words with Darius before hailing his own cab and setting off after Erik. This is what he should have done all those years ago.

He finds the side entrance this time and steals quietly into the darkened house.

Erik is laying silently in the coffin he uses as a bed and Raheem’s heart lurches seeing him like this.

“Erik…?”

Erik’s eyes flutter open and he looks around.

“Why are you here?” He asks dully.

“Because I couldn’t bear to watch you ride away again.”

“You should not stay here, you owe nothing to Erik. Go be free.”

“I am free. And if it’s all right with you I’d like to stay with you until…”

Erik is silent for several minutes before climbing out of the coffin and relocating to the sofa.

“If you wish.”

Raheem swallows around the lump in this throat and nods as he sits down next to him.

The silence weighs heavily between them, almost thirty years and two lifetimes between them.

“Will you promise me something?” Erik asks suddenly, his voice quiet and fragile.

“What?”

“Will you…when I’m gone, will you leave me as I am? In these clothes? I don’t want y—I don’t want…would you please?”

Raheem reaches out and grasps Erik’s thin hand and rubs his thumb across his wrist, too afraid of hurting him to squeeze it. He is so thin now.

“I know, Erik. I understand. I’ve known for a long time. And yes, I promise.”

Erik doesn’t look up but turns his hand to squeeze Raheem’s.

“And will you destroy all the ways down here after Christine leaves? I don’t want,” he breaks off, huffing angrily, “I don’t want any of them to come down here. This is not theirs.”

Raheem nods sadly.

“Of course.”

-

The next morning Raheem wakes to Erik standing over him holding a large bound volume.

“When you leave, you will take this,” he says, holding it out to Raheem.

“Is this…?” Raheem flips through some of the pages.

“Yes.”

A long pause.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

Erik shrugs.

“Nothing. Just keep it. And keep it to yourself. I do not want Christine to have it. She is too good for it.”

A flash of hurt surges through Raheem.

“But I’m not.”

“Don’t be stupid. You were there, you know all of this.”

He gestures to the book.

“You saw it happen. You understand Erik perhaps more than anyone. I…trust you to keep it.”

Raheem feels almost touched. Erik is rude and abrasive but he stumbles into deeply honest emotion sometimes.

He hugs the book to his chest.

-

Time passes too quickly, and they both are too aware of what is coming.

They talk about the past and drink what remains in Erik’s wine cellar.

Some days Erik is too weak to even stand.

On those days Raheem sits on the sofa and gathers Erik’s frail form in his arms and holds him gently, talking about nothing to fill the silence or humming old tunes he remembers from his childhood.

“I’m sorry.”

Erik’s breath rattles in his chest as he tries to answer.

“For not leaving with you. I should have gone with you. It was a mistake and I am so sorry.”

Tears prick at the corners of Raheem’s eyes and he wipes them away before they can fall on Erik who is resting his head on his lap.

Erik turns to look up at him and smiles slightly, his eyes sad.

“Do you know, daroga, I think that I was happy when I was with you. How curious, to be so used to wretchedness that it took me almost 30 years to realize that.” 

He sighs heavily.

And then, Erik is gone.

* * *

**Paris, 1908: Full Moon**

_The moon was shining brightly as I approached the entrance of the Rue Scribe. The Persian had told me of its existence though he warned me that I would not find the house by the lake. He told me that Erik had destroyed all the ways into his house before he died and no matter how much I begged him, he refused to even consider assisting me with finding a way down. He insisted that this unfortunate history was over and that I should not disturb the dead or their memories._

_“But think of what’s down there,” I pressed him, “all of Erik’s compositions! Shouldn’t the world know how skilled was? He was a musical genius wasn’t he? Doesn’t his talent deserve to be known by all?”_

_But he remained adamant, shaking his head sadly and looking down at his hands in his lap. He refused to speak to me further on the subject._

_His recent death marks the end of those who knew the real Phantom personally as Miss Daae and the vicomte still have yet to reappear. Whatever was left of Erik’s secrets died with him. Save for drastic involvement from the Ministry of Fine Arts and certain feats of engineering, for now, I must accept that_ Don Juan Triumphant _may never be heard in my lifetime._

_Still, I was determined in my journey._

_I felt sure that the skeleton that had been unearthed just a few days ago was the Phantom but I had to see it with my own eyes._

_Deeper and deeper I descended into the opera house, finding my way to the Communard’s road, the darkness seeming to grow darker as I progressed until I could hear sounds echoing off water in the dark._

_The dig site had been left in progress by the workers who had gone home for the day, tools strewn about, a rough wooden box off to the side._

_I approached it warily and held my breath as I pushed the lid off._

_Inside was a skeleton. It looked like every other skeleton, hideous black holes where its eyes and nose should have been, but I knew better. My light caught a glint of gold and I saw the gold ring, the wedding ring that he had given to Christine and that she had faithfully brought back to him, and I knew this was Erik._

_I stood over his remains and I prayed. I felt truly sorry for the face he had been given._

_There was nothing unusual about this skeleton at all, nothing that would suggest that the man it once was had a face so terrible and ugly that he was thought to be death itself, and yet despite its appearance, it is no ordinary skeleton._

_It was a strange sensation, to know Erik’s skeleton was indistinguishable from that of a normal man. What might he have been if he had been indistinguishable in life as well? Might we all have been so lucky to hear his_ Don Juan Triumphant _? What else could his mind have given us?_

GL.

* * *

_When life has run its course, no matter spent_

_In Baghdad or Kabul—and whether sweet_

_Or bitter as it drained: Drink up! For once_

_We’ve gone, the moon still grows full, then dim._

**Author's Note:**

> Beginning and end poems as well as part of the summary are from Juan Cole's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
> 
> Mid 19th c attitudes towards drinking wine were much more lax than today, see Rudi Mathee 'The Pursuit of Pleasure'  
> Sima Khanum is my name for Leroux's sultana  
> Babism is a religion founded in 1844, in 1852 a group of Babis attempted to assassinate the shah, Naser al-Din, in retaliation they brutally repressed.  
> Aqa Khan Nuri was Naser al-Din's second prime minister, appointed in 1851, he would be ousted in 1858.  
> Herat refers to the siege of Herat, referenced obliquely by Leroux.  
> Abdulmejid was the sultan of the Ottoman empire from 1823-1861


End file.
